


Look Away

by Sailorzeplin



Category: Polygon/McElroy Vlogs & Podcasts RPF
Genre: :( this is not a happy fic, Angst, F/F, M/M, internalized but also some external homophobia, no happy ending, no one dies though so thats neat, this is just pure sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-27
Updated: 2019-06-27
Packaged: 2020-05-20 16:02:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19380040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sailorzeplin/pseuds/Sailorzeplin
Summary: I'll never touch your body againWe gave it our all, but this is the endSo we say that we triedWatching you fade, I know it's goodbyeBut I can't look away from youI can't look away- Eli Lieb





	Look Away

**Author's Note:**

> If anyone mentioned in this fic even looks at the following work of text I will seek asylum in Russia and change my name to Julian Sokolov

Everyone from his town had told him that New York was going to change him; told him scary stories of drugs and sex and whispers of a sin that made all the older women blush. But this job offer, it was his chance to make something of himself, to become someone. There had never been much true deliberation about it, his bags always halfway packed even as he told his friends that he didn’t want to leave them. He took the job, and he didn’t even stop off at his farewell party before heading to his flight. 

The first couple of days were awful. He felt small town, naive, clumsy, young. His desk was pushed close to the wall, bordered only by one other, a cluttered mess of a station, littered with coffee rings, ashes, and piles of paper. Pat’s desk. He wasn’t ashamed to admit he admired the man, had watched every one of his videos when they came out, still did. But meeting him, meeting everyone in the office, shrunk his sense of self down to a speck, and he couldn’t sleep for three days. He had to sneak out more than once to fill his lungs with an alternate between cold air and choking sobs, but his flushed face never raised any questions, thank God. 

It wasn’t until a week in that he began to feel truly welcomed, his coworkers beginning to warm up to him and vice versa. He particularly enjoyed time with Simone, who could roll great joints and tell even greater jokes. They hung out often, and it started to feel a little more familiar, a little like home. They drank together and talked late into the night, video scripts and conspiracy theories and plots for the trashy romances they both secretly loved to read. It was no wonder that they soon fell into what happened next, two friends tumbling into something a bit more. 

Three months into their friendship, Simone and Brian kissed after one beer too many, and woke up in bed together. It was a whirlwind between them for a while. They lasted a month and a half, before Jenna caught Simone’s eye, and they fell right back into the easy quiet of their friendship. 

It was only a little after that, when Pat began to become a common fixture in his life. Starting the Gill & Gilbert stream had been rocky at first, based on a shaky friendship and a few mutual interests. But then Pat was over at his apartment until 1 am workshopping video ideas, and Brian was painting his nails to try and stop his fingers from flitting nervously to his mouth when he stared at the other’s lips. 

It became a sort of dance between them after that. Fleeting looks and touches on camera, and a whisper of something more as they returned to their desks. Pat let his fingertips brush Brian’s thighs, and it burned his skin white hot. He got calls from his high school friends every once and a while after that, urging him to go to a church service, and Brian couldn’t help but blush at the idea. 

Hiding a cross necklace under his button ups was a habit for him, six months in, feeling the cold on his chest as he chewed his lip and stared at Pat. Simone had caught on, had laughed at him and passed her beer bottle to Jenna and told him that filing a workplace relationship form with Tara was exceedingly awkward, cackling as Brian’s eyes widened when he understood. Jenna was kinder when she made fun of him, laughing softly and elbowing Simone whenever Pat and Brian would talk. Despite it all, they both rubbed his back and cooed and told him it would be alright when Pat announced a new girlfriend at a work dinner, running his hand over Brian’s knee under the table and grinning about some woman from his hometown. 

Pat’s girl didn’t last long, and he looked tired when he told his friend’s about breaking up, bittersweet joy coursing through Brian’s veins when he heard the news, hyper aware of the now worn cross necklace lying in his desk drawer. Simone spotted in the trash two days later. 

Drinking with Pat felt like a surreal dream to Brian. The other man smiled wide, eyes glowing in the soft lighting, and Brian never knew where to look, how to hide his urge to kiss every inch of his skin. That night was different, standing outside, barely buzzed from the alcohol, when Brian felt hesitant, nervous fingers brush against his own knuckles. Darting his eyes over, he grinned seeing Pat, who was determinedly staring at his shoes and blushing prettily. 

Watching Pat gasp under him filled Brian with something he couldn’t truly understand, and kissing him was the only thing that eased the lovesick ache inside, so he connected their lips gladly, swallowing the whines from Pat and chasing a heat together. 

Brian pushed his bible under his bed shamefully the next day, trying to lose himself in the lopsided grin of the man laying in his bed. Guilt stopped him from kissing anywhere but Pat’s cheek, and his shower burned his skin as he tried not to cry. 

He didn’t know how long he’d be out of work. He just knew he couldn’t go back. Not now.

Simone stopped calling, and he thought he was safe. He let himself relax. He let himself feel good again. He put his bible back on his nightstand. He fell asleep and woke up with Pat’s name on his lips every night. He was coping. He was okay. 

Simone showed up at his door after a week. Just her. She looked sad when she saw him, and kissed his cheek, soft against his skin, and he was almost sick because he missed the scratchiness of Pat’s scruffy facial hair. 

“We’ve missed you at the office. Tara said...she said you were taking a mental health break. Pat said you won’t pick up his calls.”  
Brian winced, shaking his head.  
“I think I’m going to quit. I need to go back home. I can’t be here. It’s not - it isn’t right.”  
Simone sighed then, looking sadder than before. She pulled something, a letter, out of her purse, setting it on his coffee table and pulling him into a tight hug. She left with a simple goodbye, and Brian broke down into tears. 

He read the letter that night, shuffling through five pages of typed script that Simone had obviously taken a few days to write. It hurt him to read it, to see his thoughts dismantled in her words the way they were, and he almost put it down. Almost. But when he finished, he read it again, and fell asleep with it in his hands. 

Pat got a call from Brian two days later which worried him deeply. The man was hesitant, sad, stuttering over his words. A simple message, a whispered goodbye. Simone received her own, in the form of a letter, which brought her to tears in the middle of her kitchen, only to be discovered by Jenna an hour later, still crying as she talked on the phone with Pat. 

Two years passed, and it almost burned when Brian looked over at the woman across the table from him. Kissing her left him empty, and that night he imagined soft and clumsy fingers brushing his thighs when she laid down in the bed next to him. 

His parents clapped him on the back when he had come back home, eyes twinkling with “I told you so” as Brian sobbed into their shoulders.

**Author's Note:**

> whoops im sorry to everyone who read this trash fic


End file.
